Today, I am sharing 3 stupid-simple summer sanity savers. These ridiculously simple hacks are helping me muddle through this pandemic muck. I almost didn’t write this post because, as I said, they are stupid-simple, but if they help one homeschool parent, I’ll be thrilled.
When you are finished reading, I’d love for you to share your stupid-simple sanity savers that are helping right now. Let’s share and help each other!
3 Stupid-Simple Summer Sanity Savers for Homeschool Moms
I keep saying, “I can’t wait to read the book we’re currently in!”
The last few months have been surreal to say the least. Do you know that Mo Willems book, We are in a Book!? I keep telling the kids that we are in a book right now. (Funny but also not funny, right?!)
There will be books written about what we are living through right now. We are living through a collective trauma. It’s hugely stressful in a myriad of ways, but I think we will realize exactly how stressful it was when we have the benefit of hindsight.
This is one of the reasons why I switched from this super simple homeschool routine to a mental health to-do list early in our pandemic-ing. I feel it is of the utmost importance to focus on hearts over heads right now. The current situation is allowing us to teach our children coping skills and how to flex those empathy muscles. I believe these skills are as important as academic skills.
And now I’ve added some summer fun in the form of a Summer Idea List, an alternative to the traditional bucket list because it’s an anything-but-traditional summer!
I created this idea list with the kids. They did most of the work. Unlike traditional bucket lists, the goal is not to cross off every idea. Instead, the list serves as a boredom buster for this atypical summer. I posted it on Instagram and had oodles of requests to make a printable. It took me some time, but I did it!
Read more about summer resources here:
I digress…
We need stupid-simple summer sanity savers because of all the everyday life stressors add up
This is a challenging season for all of us, in a multitude of different ways. When you’re living through a stressful time, and especially when you’re spending so much time together, everyday nuisances can exacerbate stress.
I can tell you what drives me crazy. I can tolerate messes. If you know us in real life, you know my kids love mud and mess and creating. It’s all very messy, but very important business!
But at the end of the day, when I go to curl up with a good book, I want my space to be put back together. Now, that doesn’t mean it needs to be sparkling clean. I can assure you that it is not. You don’t want to give us the white glove test! But, I don’t want to be stepping on wands and Lego and nature finds.
I just can’t think – or relax- in a super disorganized space. I wish I could turn a blind eye and carry on but it’s not in my nature. And I’ve learned that pandemic-ing can be ridiculously messy!
After a couple of weeks of quarantine, I realized a few things:
- We have messes in every single room of the house because we are home more and have more free time to create and invent and make messes. At the end of the day, the rooms were looking like the family room post-Christmas. A million and one things out but zero things cleaned up.
- Quarantine has skyrocketed the amount of laundry and the number of dishes I do. All of a sudden, I’m running the dishwasher daily and the sink is overflowing in a way that it never has before. I’m also finding cups and plates in the backyard, long abandoned.
- I am washing way too much laundry. And where on earth are all of these bath towels are coming from? It’s not like the kids look clean, so why am I washing every towel in the house?
These everyday nuisances are different for all of us. It’s important to identify the everyday nuisances that drive you bonkers and see if there are stupid-simple hacks to save your sanity this summer.
3 Stupid-Simple Summer Sanity Savers for Homeschool Moms
I’m going to share my stupid-simple summer sanity savers in the hope that it helps one homeschool mama out there. When you are finished reading, I’d love for you to share your hacks so that we can all help each other muddle through this surreal summer!
1. Chore Chart
At the beginning of this homeschool year I created a simple chore chart for my children. I am delighted to report that our chore chart has worked for the entire school year!
Here’s how this stupid-simple summer sanity saver works:
It was easy-peasy! I thought of the six most annoying tasks that need to be completed each day (dishes, counters, sweeping, counter clean-up, etc.) and I gave two tasks to each kiddo per day. The days alternate so everyone gets a chance to do each task.
It’s not pretty, but it’s worked all year!
I printed two copies of the chore chart and laminated them. I placed one copy in our kitchen and one in the kids’ bathroom. (This way, no one can claim they don’t know their chores for a given day!)
Also, each child has a designated laundry day each week. The laundry is in addition to that day’s chores. I serve as Official Laundry Coach should they need assistance for any reason, but they are pretty darn self-sufficient at this point. Pandemic Cait is thankful for Fall Planner Cait, that’s for sure!
I’ll admit that, when the pandemic first hit, we all fell off our game. We slacked on laundry and chores and the result was major stress for all … and a cranky mom! Once I realized we were off our chore chart game, we had a family meeting and promised to stay on top of the chore chart. Life has been much smoother sailing since then!
I talked about this in more detail over on this episode of The Homeschool Sisters Podcast if you’re interested in learning more.
2. Mess kits
I am going to majorly date myself here, but when I was in middle school we had a cooking class. The class would be divided into groups of four students, alphabetically by last name, and you’d work together in a small kitchen. You’d have to collaborate to follow a recipe, set a table, eat the food, and clean up. You’d be graded on your ability to work together and follow directions.
Well, these are the things I think of in the middle of the night when I should be sleeping. I have these random ideas. Mostly these ideas are just half-asleep junk but sometimes they are GOLD.
This is one of those gold ideas, you guys.
For the past couple of summers, my kids have loved camping in the backyard together. Both boys started Scouts this year and they are obsessed with the outdoors and survivalism.
It occurred to me that I could get them each a camping “mess kit” in a different color and they could use that mess kit for their meals. This is a win-win. They get an addition to their camping equipment and I can help teach life skills plus we will end up with fewer dishes!
Mess kits plus cafeteria trays make for super easy outdoor dining and clean up!
Here’s how this stupid-simple summer sanity saver works:
- Each kiddo has a mess kit (a bowl, cup, and plate) in a favorite color.
- These are to be used for every meal unless it’s Sunday night dinner (because that’s when we get fancy!).
- If weather permits, kids are welcome to eat breakfast and lunch outdoors. They can eat at the table on the patio or in the treehouse or playset. It doesn’t matter! (To help with ease of transport, we are using these cafeteria trays in colors that match the mess kits. I have a pack of cafeteria trays that I’ve used for years. They are PERFECT for art projects and mess-making!)
- All trays and mess kits must be returned to the house and washed when the meal is over. The kids wash these dishes themselves- just like cooking class! I bought a dish rack to make drying easier. BOOM! My dishwasher and sink are breathing huge sighs of relief right now!
Eat, wash, dry, repeat! These mess kits are GAME CHANGERS for our family.
This is a stupid-simple hack. My kids are learning to be responsible for the dishes and they are learning how to wash and dry dishes (something kids don’t do a lot of in this dishwasher age). Plus, my sink and dishwasher aren’t overflowing. It seems like such a silly thing, but it’s been a huge stress reducer and they will be able to use these mess kits when camping when in-person Scouts resumes.
3. Towels
The towels were driving me bonkers. We have enough laundry without washing all of the towels in the house. This hack was also stupid-simple.
Here’s how this stupid-simple summer sanity saver works:
- I hid the towels that used to be on a shelf in our bathroom. Yes, I did. I took them away completely.
- Then, I bought two (affordable) towels in a favorite color. Each kid picked a color and was given two bath towels. One hangs on your door for daily use and the other one is in your closet. On laundry day, you toss the one on the hook in the wash and you use the one in your closet.
These towels are saving my sanity. It seems silly, but it is what it is right now!
Again, this is stupid-simple but it’s a stress reducer. Each kid has a color so it’s ridiculously simple. And it erases the problem of the mystery towel user. (Because, naturally, when I asked who was using a bajillion towels each week everyone looked dumbfounded.) You have to stick with your color. End of story.
Identify those daily nuisances that are grating at you and try to find a stupid-simple summer sanity saver solution
The hacks I just mentioned seem silly to me. So silly that I almost didn’t write about them. But then I shared the mess kit plus cafeteria tray plus dish rack success with friends and they told me I needed to share it on Instagram. And these friends? They were the ones that told me to buy two bath towels per kid in different colors.
All this to say, no idea is too silly right now. If you are struggling with an everyday nuisance, ask your friends for hacks. If you stumble upon a stupid-simple solution, share with friends just in case. We need to help each other navigate this surreal time!
More support for COVID-19 life right now:
- Helpful Resources During this Uncertain Time
- How to Make Space for Mental Health in Your Homeschool
- How to Create a Super Simple Homeschool Routine
Pandemic-related bonus episodes from The Homeschool Sisters Podcast:
- Bonus: Creative Cooking and Meal Planning with Samantha Barnes
- Bonus Episode: Social Distancing
- Coping Right Now, with the Kindred Collective Crew {Episode 93}
- Navigating Anxiety, with Colleen Kessler {Episode 92}
- Taking Care of Ourselves Through a Crisis {Episode 94}
- The Power of Stories in Hard Times {Episode 91}
Now, it’s your turn. Tell me: Do you have a stupid-simple summer sanity saver to share? Share it here!
Cait has created several courses for homeschool parents. Cait co-hosts The Homeschool Sisters Podcast and is co-founder of Kindred Collective. Cait is also founder of the Family Book Club at My Little Poppies, a fantastic community of book-loving parents and the Gameschool Community at My Little Poppies, a vibrant community of gameschoolers.
Cait is a contributing writer for Simple Homeschool. Her work has also appeared on The Huffington Post, The Mighty, Scary Mommy, GeekMom, and many others. You can find her on Facebook, Pinterest, and Instagram.
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I just bought everything for mess kits because that’s a genius idea! Thank you!
These are all brilliant ideas! Thank you for sharing.
Love these ideas! One hack we’ve used for years to control cup overuse is to take those bread bag closure tab things, and save them. Then we write our name or initials on it and hook it over the side of the cup. Then people use one cup all day long. It has helped! Although your mess kit idea is even slicker. 😀
Please oh please post every idea you have if you think these are stupid! Thank you for sharing! I wish I had some stupid-simple sanity savers to share (though I did recently figure out I could use pantyliners to stop nighttime diaper leaks).
One sanity-saving thing I’ve done is created a “snack bowl” for each kid with a variety of snacks daily. This prevents the “can I have a snack??” moaning. Your snacks are in the bowl, you can e as t them whenever, but when they are gone, they are gone!
I love these ideas, especially the mess kit idea!
I’ve been thinking about the towel idea for awhile now, I just haven’t broken down to buy the towels. But I love the mess kit idea. I’m really going to have to implement this! And I keep trying the chore chart thing… but I’ve yet to find a way to be consistent in our household. But you give me hope. ☺️ Thanks so much for sharing Cait!
I put the chore chart on the wall right by the kitchen island and also in the kids’ bathroom. The visual helps and I see it and remember and can just say, “What are your jobs today? Let’s take five and get them done.” Not sure if that is helpful or not!
These are such awesome ideas! The towels and mess kits will help immensely here and with a newborn and 3 older boys I can use all the help I can get!
A few months ago I got fed up with the massive amount of laundry. We could get it all washed but the folding and putting away we were always behind on even though it was a daily chore. It was just too much to stay on top of and the kids were constantly running out of clothes to wear and rummaging through the unfolded laundry. I realized the main issue was that everyone’s clothes were mixed together so it was impossible for each kid to find their own clothes.
My solution was to get each child their own dirty laundry hamper in their favorite color/design and their own clean laundry hamper as well. Now they all just do their laundry whenever they start running out of clothes to wear and they can fold it and put it away or they can just use what they want from their clean basket- their choice! Doesn’t matter to me as long as I don’t have to think about it! Now I only have my own laundry (and now the baby’s) and other household laundry to do..stupid simple I know! Probably everyone already does this, duh!
That is an AWESOME super simple solution! Laundry is an eternal pain point!
I have three, five and under. For whatever reason, I hate the process of getting kids dressed in the morning. So, a couple of years ago, I stopped buying pajamas. Instead, they wear t-shirts and shorts to bed. They put on a clean set at night and wear them the next day. Less laundry for me, less morning chaos.
Love it, Tish!
We’ve used a color system for years, and I truly love it. Every person in our family (7 people, going on 8) has an assigned color, even the parents. We have plates, bowls, cups, towels, washcloths, water bottles, backpacks, and bandanas each in our own color. Probably other things too, but that’s all I can remember at the moment. This completely solves the problem of “whose is this?” and “who left this out?” For water, the kids only use their stainless steel water bottle – no cups!!
I also use the color system to record our school – each kid’s learning each day is written a simple monthly/weekly planner, in their own color, and then I only have to keep one book for everyone!
I love the idea of having each kid wash their own dish after each meal. I’ve not tried that. It looks like your kids are sure enjoying their lovely backyard!
Love these ideas, Rae!
Great post! Sometimes the simple ideas are the best (and not stupid at all!). 🙂 Any resources on survivalism and outdoorsman-y things for when Scouts is out that you recommend? Might as well take a deep dive into the outdoors in times such as these!! Thanks for writing.
That’s a great idea for a post, Michelle. I have a post here somewhere on “Nature Explorer Backpacks” – it’s an old one but it will give you an idea of ways to sneak in some backyard learning. My boys love those little Scout books on various topics. My oldest just said that “Survival Kid” by Denise Long and “Bushcraft 101” are his two favorite books for survivalist. Hope this gets you off and running!